A man who carried out a series of seven armed robberies, including at a few bars in Plateau Mont Royal, was declared a dangerous offender on Thursday.
And despite having received the harshest sentence an offender can get in Canada, Raynald Leblanc proceeded to reveal the mystery behind how an expensive violin, which he stole in 1998, was returned to its right owner 14 years later.
During a hearing at the Montreal courthouse, Quebec Court Judge Sylvie Kovacevich declared Leblanc a dangerous offender and ruled that he should serve an indefinite prison term. The designation means that Leblanc, 44, can be incarcerated for the rest of his life until the Parole Board of Canada decides he is ready to be released.
In 2010 and 2011, Leblanc and accomplices carried out a series of seven armed robberies. In some cases a fake firearm was pointed at patrons, clients and employees who were ordered to lie on the ground during the robberies. Leblanc’s role was to grab or crack open safes that were inside the businesses. He was arrested on Dec. 5, 2011, while leaving the scene of one of the robberies. During sentence arguments, Leblanc said he was never the one who held the fake firearms used in the robberies.
The parole board is required to hold a hearing into Leblanc’s case next year (seven years after he was arrested). If he is turned down for parole, the board is required to hold hearings every two years to see if Leblanc has made any progress toward rehabilitation.
Kovacevich based her decision on Leblanc’s lengthy criminal record, his apparent unwillingness to address an addiction to drugs and an evaluation by a psychiatrist who determined he represents a high risk of reoffending. Leblanc has served three sentences in federal penitentiaries and, in 2006, he told the Parole Board of Canada he was ready to make a major change in his life.
He began committing crimes as a minor and carried out his first of many armed robberies in 2005. Even a psychiatrist who examined Leblanc on a request from his defence lawyer evaluated him as “someone who has difficulty changing his routine” of committing crimes to feed his drug addiction.
Leblanc’s sentence hearing also cleared up a mystery behind how a violin, worth more than $60,000, was returned to its rightful owner in 2014, after having been stolen in 1998.
After having been declared a dangerous offender, Leblanc had that one case left in his file at the Montreal courthouse. He pleaded guilty to having stolen the violin, from a car in Hochelaga Maisonneuve.
The violin, a copy of a Stradivarius, the world famous makers of the instruments, is worth $60,000. During the hearing, Kovacevich was told that Lebalc stole the violin and quickly sold it to an accomplice in one of his many crimes for drug money.
In 2014, while he was hoping to avoid the dangerous offender designation, Leblanc told police where they could find the violin. The return of the instrument made headlines in 2014 and the owner told the Journal de Montréal that getting it back in his hands “was a miracle.” But at the time the police said very little about how it made its way back to the owner.
“I want to apologize to the owner of the violin. I didn’t know it would have such an impact on his life,” Leblanc told the court after pleading guilty to the theft. Kovacevich sentenced Leblanc to a six-month prison term for the theft.
